Theresa glanced at the chain link.
Nagle said, "The police are on their way, I know. I saw the alarm on the fence. They'll be here in three, four minutes, and they'll arrest me. That's fine. But I have to tell you something. The man who killed your parents has escaped from prison."
"I know."
"You do? Your aunt--"
"Just leave me alone!"
"There's a policewoman in Monterey who's trying to catch him but she needs some help. Your aunt wouldn't tell you, and if you were eleven or twelve I'd never do this. But you're old enough to make up your own mind. She wants to talk to you."
"A policewoman?"
"Please, just call her. She's in Monterey. You can--Oh, God."
The gunshot from behind Theresa was astonishingly loud, way louder than in the movies. It shook the windows and sent birds streaking into the clear skies.
Theresa cringed at the sound and dropped to her knees, watching Morton Nagle tumble backward onto the wet grass, his arms flailing in the air.
Eyes wide in horror, the girl looked at the deck behind the house.
Weird, she didn't even know her aunt owned a gun, much less knew how to shoot it.
*
TJ Scanlon's extensive canvassing of James Reynolds's neighborhood had yielded no helpful witnesses or evidence.
"No vee-hicles. No nothin'." He was calling from a street near the prosecutor's house.
Dance, in her office, stretched and her bare feet fiddled with one of the three pairs of shoes under her desk. She badly wanted an ID of Pell's new car, if not a tag number; Reynolds had reported only that it was a dark sedan, and the officer who'd been bashed with the shovel couldn't remember seeing it at all. The MCSO's crime scene team hadn't found any trace or other forensic evidence to give even a hint as to what Pell might be driving now.
She thanked TJ and disconnected, then joined O'Neil and Kellogg in the CBI conference room, where Charles Overby was about to arrive to ask for fodder for the next press conf
erence--and his daily update to Amy Grabe of the FBI, and the head of the CBI in Sacramento, both of whom were extremely troubled that Daniel Pell was still free. Unfortunately, though, Overby's briefing this morning would be primarily about the funeral plans for Juan Millar.
Her eyes caught Kellogg's and they both looked away. She hadn't had a chance to talk to the FBI agent about last night in the car.
Then decided: What is there to talk about?
. . . afterward. How does that sound?
Young Rey Carraneo, eyes wide, stuck his perfectly round head into the conference room and said breathlessly, "Agent Dance, I'm sorry to interrupt."
"What, Rey?"
"I think . . ." His voice vanished. He'd been sprinting. Sweat dotted his dark face.
"What? What's wrong?"
The skinny agent said, "The thing is, Agent Dance, I think I've found him."
"Who?"
"Pell."
Chapter 40
The young agent explained that he'd called the upscale Sea View Motel in Pacific Grove--only a few miles from where Dance lived--and learned that a woman had checked in on Saturday. She was midtwenties, attractive and blond, slightly built. On Tuesday night, the desk clerk saw a Latino man go into her room.